


Pretty Perfect

by Ebhenah



Series: Future Klance Family Fics [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotional Fluff, Fluff, Hospital, Julance 2020, Julance prompt: Blue, Klance as dads, Labor and Delivery, M/M, Married Klance, New Baby, Starting A Family, Surrogacy, birth story, family bonds, klance, medical setting, surrogate Rachel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:07:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25026703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ebhenah/pseuds/Ebhenah
Summary: With a little help from family, Keith and Lance welcome their first child.
Relationships: Keith & Rachel (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron), Lance & Rachel (Voltron)
Series: Future Klance Family Fics [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1265678
Comments: 12
Kudos: 88





	Pretty Perfect

No matter how thoroughly they’d discussed the details of starting their family, any reminder of Rachel's insistence that she help would never stop making Lance tear up. Keith teased him about being weepier than the person who was actually pregnant. He couldn’t help it! What she was doing was just SO huge! 

They’d still been waffling between surrogacy and adoption when his mother had overheard the hushed phone conversation with the Garrison medical insurance facilitator and immediately cried “a baby! How wonderful!”

After that, it had been a million questions from a dozen family members, with him and Keith both tripping all over their answers and repeating “nothing is set in stone just yet. We’re still researching.” ad nauseum.

That night, as he was unloading the dishwasher, his sister had approached him and asked who would be the genetic father if they went with a surrogate. He’d explained that it would be Keith. That Lance had a big boisterous family, but Keith was an only child of an only child. So, if they were going to carry on a bloodline, Lance felt like it should be Keith’s. She’d nodded and pointed out that there was a way that they didn’t have to choose- SHE could be the surrogate.

They’d spent a couple of weeks talking about it, but Rachel was insistent that it was something she WANTED to do for them, and there was no denying the way Keith’s eyes lit up at the idea of their child sharing DNA with both of them. So, she’d started the protocol and put up with all the tests and appointments and injections and within a couple of months, she was pregnant.

Thankfully, the pregnancy had been an easy one. Lance didn’t want to think about how much MORE indebted he would have felt to her if she’d had to deal with complications and bedrest and all that. Seeing her deal with labor pains was bad enough!

It had been twelve hours already. 

Twelve gruelling hours of ice chips and back-rubs and walking and, for a while there, lunges (the nurse said they would help the baby turn). Rachel was amazing. She was amazing. There was no other way to describe it. 

Lance was exhausted just watching her.

It had been almost an hour since, halfway through a contraction, her face had changed and she’d gone from ‘yoga instructor breathing’ to ‘bench press breathing’. The nurse had taken one look at her and said “here we go” with a knowing grin.

Since then, she’d been crouched at the edge of the weird hospital bed that had more configurations than any kind of furniture should. Her arms were draped over a padded metal frame and when she’d get a contraction she’d curl around it, rising up from the mattress just enough to clear it and ROAR her way through the pushing.

Keith ground his fist into the small of her back in a way that looked painful but Rachel insisted helped, and Lance blotted her face with a cool cloth and whispered encouragement to her in Spanish.

Seriously, there was no way they could ever repay her for this. He was kind of amazed that siblings were a thing that existed. How did anyone go through this once and then willingly sign up to do it again? His mother had done this FIVE TIMES!?!? How??

The doctor cooed encouragement and praise in a rapid fire cadence that reminded Lance of an auctioneer, telling Rachel that she could see the head and that she was so close to being done with all her hard work. The gaps between contractions were almost non-existent now, maybe half a minute for Rachel to try to catch her breath before she was squatting and roaring and hanging onto that bar so hard her knuckles turned white. 

“Alright, Daddy… time for you to get over here,” the doctor said, waving a gloved hand at Keith to beckon him closer. 

Lance moved into Keith’s wake effortlessly, taking over the job of providing counter pressure and sitting behind Rachel on the bed. They’d already agreed that Keith was going to be as involved as possible and Lance was going to stay on the upper-body side of the birthing action. 

“Alright,” he heard Keith say, nerves making his voice shake a little. “What do I do?”

“Once the head is out and I make sure there’s no issue with the cord, you are just going to support the head and baby will turn to free the shoulders. Then you just guide your baby down onto the mattress. It’s pretty instinctive.”

“You can do it, Keith,” Rachel said, because she was amazing. Just… his sister was amazing. “Ow! Owowowow… that fucking stings!”

“Head’s clear… that’s right… hand right there and on the next push…”

“Oh my God! Lance! I can see the face!”

Everything happened so fast. One second everyone was chanting pushpushpushpush at Rachel and she was roaring and nurses were bustling around with trays and towels and the next there was an outraged, keening cry and they all shut up.

It felt like the entire universe stopped. Just for a heartbeat. Just long enough to make room for the new little person that occupied it.

“Time of birth- two oh seven pm.”  
  
“Good job!” One of the nurses cheered, and Lance honestly had no idea if she was talking to Rachel, the baby, or Keith… or maybe all of them.

From his spot on the bed, Lance heard more than saw the burst of activity. He knew they were checking the baby over, and he was too terrified to speak until he heard them say everything was alright. Scared to death he might jinx it somehow.

“Shhh, sweetness… you’re okay… I know it’s bright and scary, but you’re okay… I promise… you’re safe,” Keith sounded like he was crying.

“Lance,” gasped Rachel, pain still lacing her voice, “the blanket… get the blanket…”

“Right! Right…” He scrabbled off of the bed, rushing to the bag they’d packed and dug out the blanket every McClain baby had been bundled into for three generations. 

It was hand-made by his grandmother during her first pregnancy. Soft, well-worn bamboo- it wasn’t anything fancy. Just plain pink on one side, blue on the other, the two fabrics stitched together with little yellow and white embroidered daisies. He was shaking it out when he heard the doctor telling Keith how to cut the cord.

“Which side?” he asked, frazzled because by the time he got back to the bed, Keith was holding the baby, who was already wrapped up in warmed flannel, and Lance had never seen his husband so enthralled and lovestruck- not even on their wedding day. Every time he glanced at the baby he melted a little more.

“Blue,” Keith whispered through tears. “Blue side out… it’s a boy. We have a son.”

“A son?” He’d been expecting to cry, but somehow in all the craziness, he’d kind of forgotten that he’d been expecting it and the happy sob that accompanied his tears took him by surprise. “Keith… oh my God… we’re fathers!”

“I know,” Keith smiled at him, setting the baby in Lance’s arms and tucking the family blanket around him. “He’s so beautiful!”

Blinking away tears, Lance looked down at the newborn in his arms. His face was all scrunched up and he still had some white stuff stuck to his hair and his cheek, but Keith was right. “So this is what perfection looks like,” he breathed, barely able to form the words around the lump in his throat. “Oh, Rache! Look! He’s perfect! So perfect!”

His sister took the baby from him and held him while the doctor and nurses did their thing- rubbing Rachel’s belly and checking all her vitals and giving her a shot and all that- but Lance scarcely noticed. He was far too enthralled with the tiny little person in her arms. 

“We can’t ever thank you enough,” croaked Keith, still crying. “Rachel, my God… look at him… this is… you are…”

“Family,” she insisted, “I’m family… and I wanted to help you guys start your family. I’m just glad I could. So… stop it. Both of you. He’s worth every second of it. Yes, you are, you precious little prince!”

“Does this little fellow have a name yet?” asked the nurse. “I can put it on the paperwork for you.”

“Thace,” Keith answered, “his name is Thace Aries Kogane.”

“Aries? Really??” Rachel blinked at them.

“It means ram,” explained Lance. “Your name means ewe. There’s no boy version of Rachel. But a ewe and a ram are both sheep so…”

“You’re naming him after me?” she asked, her eyes welling up.

“Of course we are, Rachel! It is literally the LEAST we can do!”

Sniffling, she nodded, “okay… okay… Thace Aries Kogane. I like it. He looks like a Thace.”

“He looks like you,” Keith chuckled, wiping away tears, “I used to think people were nuts for saying babies looked like anyone- but he does. He’s got those McClain eyes.”

“Most babies have blue eyes when they are born.” Lance stroked a finger over the baby’s forehead and the little guy yawned. “I read that somewhere… They are born with blue eyes but the color changes as they get older. That’s supposed to be a really dark blue, though- not pale like ours.”

“Maybe his eyes won’t change then… maybe he’ll always have those baby blues.”

The three of them stayed crowded together around the baby until it was time to move Rachel to her recovery room. Keith insisted on steering her wheelchair, so Lance got to be the one to carry the baby, who had fallen asleep. 

Everyone always assumed his favorite color was blue because he wore a lot of it. But he wore blue because everyone said it made his eyes pop. Truthfully, he’d never really had a favorite color, but as he cradled his son to his chest and followed his sister and his husband down the corridors of the hospital, he re-evaluated that lack of preference. Because, after today, he thought maybe he did have a favorite color.

Blue was a pretty perfect color, after all.

  
  
  
  



End file.
